Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1536

A well-spec'd Centrino Duo laptop at an affordable price

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The not so good parts include the screen hinges, which feel rather flimsy, something I didn’t expect. The integrated microphone has also been located at the lower right hand side of the laptop, exactly where your wrist ends up when you’re typing.

Size-wise the Amilo Pi 1536 isn’t what you’d call small, but it’s not the biggest 15.4in machine I’ve seen either. It measures 36 x 27 x 3.7cm and weighs in at 3.1kg, which makes it portable, but not something you’d want to carry around with you for a long period of time.

The Amilo's battery life isn’t too impressive, recording a mere 115 minutes from the DVD playback test, not even enough for a feature-length movie these days. The normal battery test was, at 137 minutes, somewhat better, but this is still disappointing. On the other hand the performance score of 179 isn’t a bad result from MobileMark 2005.

The PCMark 05 scores are in line with what you’d expect from the components used, although the SATA hard drive gives it an extra performance boost. The 3DMark 05 score is not all that impressive, as the X1400 card only managed a paltry 1670 points. You’d get away with playing some games on it, as long as you don’t have too high expectations, but the latest titles will really struggle.

You don’t get a lot of software with the Amilo Pi 1536, but Fujitsu-Siemens has at least included a copy of Microsoft Works 8. You also get Nero 6 and WinDVD 5 along with a system restore disc.

Overall, the Amilo Pi 1536 is a well-featured laptop with some of the latest mobile technology under the hood. It’s not the most powerful machine on the market, but this is justified by the £940 price point. It’s not perfect and there are similarly specified laptops out there for slightly less money, although cheaper doesn’t alwasys mean better when it comes to notebooks.

Verdict

The Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1536 is a well-specified desktop replacement laptop. It’s definitely not for the road warrior, but if you occasionally need to take your computer with you, this could be the one for you. It’s affordable and has a good range of features, although the battery life if disappointing and there are a couple of minor question marks about the build quality. ®